Delhi Police Archive on RSS activity in October-December 1947
The documents contained in the link below are a replica of Delhi Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) files on RSS activity and plans October-December 1947. They are part of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library archive; and listed as (click for access):
D P Records 5th Instalment Home-47 File 138
Among other places, the files have been cited by Ramchandra Guha in an article in Outlook magazine in 2005; an article on Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in Catchnews by Bharat Bhushan in 2016; and in an article on M.S. Golwalkar's ideology by Hartosh Singh Bal in Caravan in 2017. I have referred to it in a post on the Supreme Court's admission of a libel case in 2016. These articles may be useful for readers interested in the significance of the archive.
[ As a matter of caution, we should keep in mind the doctoring of Mahatma Gandhi's Collected Works under the first NDA government (1998): Brazen attempt to 'revise' Gandhi's Collected Works. Hundreds of deletions and changes were noticed by scholars in India and around the world, who viewed them as an insult to scholarship, and demanded an end to attempts to play with historical documents. Read the history of the controversy. Tridip Suhrud wrote a detailed analysis of this shameless behaviour in EPW in November 2004. It was only after the defeat of the NDA that the fraudulently 'revised' edition was withdrawn, in 2005. Another example of the manipulation of records was the manner in which the case file in the 2007 terror case involving Swami Aseemanand
(which also involved top leaders of the RSS) went 'missing', causing the dismissal of the case and the (attempted) retirement of the judge.]
The following extract from a CID source report dated 27 Dec 1947 may be of interest. It covers a secret meeting of RSS members in Delhi on December 8, 1947, addressed by 'Guruji' Golwalkar; who is quoted as saying: "The Sangh will not rest until it had finished Pakistan. If anyone stood in our way we will have to finish him too, whether it was Nehru government or any other government. The Sangh could not be won over. They should carry on their work. Referring to Muslims he said that no power on earth could keep them in Hindusthan. They shall have to quit this country. Mahatma Gandhi wanted to keep the Muslims in India so that the Congress (may) profit by their votes at the time of election. But, by that time, not a single muslim will be left in India.
If they were made to stay here, the responsibility would be Government’s, and the Hindu community would not be responsible. Mahatma Gandhi could not mislead them any longer. We have the means whereby such men can be immediately silenced, but it is our tradition not to be inimical to Hindus. If we are compelled, we will have to resort to that course also."
Six weeks after this meeting, there took place the January 20 Gandhi murder attempt.
And ten days after that, Gandhiji was dead.
Bharat
Bhushan - Did Pranab make a Faustian bargain?
The emperor's masks
D P Records 5th Instalment Home-47 File 138
Among other places, the files have been cited by Ramchandra Guha in an article in Outlook magazine in 2005; an article on Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in Catchnews by Bharat Bhushan in 2016; and in an article on M.S. Golwalkar's ideology by Hartosh Singh Bal in Caravan in 2017. I have referred to it in a post on the Supreme Court's admission of a libel case in 2016. These articles may be useful for readers interested in the significance of the archive.
[ As a matter of caution, we should keep in mind the doctoring of Mahatma Gandhi's Collected Works under the first NDA government (1998): Brazen attempt to 'revise' Gandhi's Collected Works. Hundreds of deletions and changes were noticed by scholars in India and around the world, who viewed them as an insult to scholarship, and demanded an end to attempts to play with historical documents. Read the history of the controversy. Tridip Suhrud wrote a detailed analysis of this shameless behaviour in EPW in November 2004. It was only after the defeat of the NDA that the fraudulently 'revised' edition was withdrawn, in 2005. Another example of the manipulation of records was the manner in which the case file in the 2007 terror case involving Swami Aseemanand
(which also involved top leaders of the RSS) went 'missing', causing the dismissal of the case and the (attempted) retirement of the judge.]
The following extract from a CID source report dated 27 Dec 1947 may be of interest. It covers a secret meeting of RSS members in Delhi on December 8, 1947, addressed by 'Guruji' Golwalkar; who is quoted as saying: "The Sangh will not rest until it had finished Pakistan. If anyone stood in our way we will have to finish him too, whether it was Nehru government or any other government. The Sangh could not be won over. They should carry on their work. Referring to Muslims he said that no power on earth could keep them in Hindusthan. They shall have to quit this country. Mahatma Gandhi wanted to keep the Muslims in India so that the Congress (may) profit by their votes at the time of election. But, by that time, not a single muslim will be left in India.
If they were made to stay here, the responsibility would be Government’s, and the Hindu community would not be responsible. Mahatma Gandhi could not mislead them any longer. We have the means whereby such men can be immediately silenced, but it is our tradition not to be inimical to Hindus. If we are compelled, we will have to resort to that course also."
Six weeks after this meeting, there took place the January 20 Gandhi murder attempt.
And ten days after that, Gandhiji was dead.
The emperor's masks
